Thursday, March 19, 2015

We spend way too much time commuting

New Yorkers aren’t just workaholics - they spend more time working and commuting than residents of any other big city.

The city’s work week and commute together average 49.1 hours - beating the 29 other largest cities in the country, according to an analysis by City Controller Scott Stringer.

“Our transportation network is grinding us down,” Stringer said. “It’s a one-two punch for lower wage workers, who get paid less and travel longer to get to work.”

New Yorkers work only slightly longer hours - with an average work week of 42.4 hours, compared to 42.5 in the other cities - and rank 12th of the 30 spots surveyed.

But with commute factored in, the city’s combined work week of 49.08 outstripped other cities’ average of 46.48 by two and a half hours.

Workers in the finance industry log the longest work weeks, at 47 hours on average. But security guards have the longest commutes, at eight hours a week, Stringer found. Low wage workers tend to have the longest travel times because they can’t afford to live close to work.

This is why it makes me laugh when commenters say that people should live near subways to reduce carbon footprint, not own a car, blah, blah, blah.

36 comments:

Anonymous
said...

49 hours a week is an easy commute for me. I've in bayside and work on the upper east side so it takes me about 1 1/2 -2 hours one way just to get to work to the cheapest way!! They give us an express bus here that hardly ever runs (it runs 3 times in the morning and 3 times in the evening) and in order to afford it, you have to be making a lot more money. 6 bucks for a one way trip is not worth it and forget about the lirr - that's even more expensive!! If you move closer to public transit then you're stuck paying up the ass for rent unless you want to live in a garage trashy area!! Nyc is just a miserable, unaffordable craphole these days and I was born and raised here and I'm saying this!!

I average 4.5 hours a day commute,mane have to pay $25/day in tolls. I'm going from Queens out to the Parsippany area. Mass transit?, haha. I've looked. In THEORY possible. Bus to LIRR, lirr to penn, NJT to Morristown, then a bus. Would only increase my time to 3.5 hours each way, but the $500+ in trainfaire alone...

Welcome to new kind of depression. And those struggling are going to be taxed another 2.50 or 3.50 when the fares go up in a week. Add to the awful facts of stagnant wages and rising costs of rent and food.

Of course this isn't a problem for those who work on wall street or take the L,M,C,A and F a few stops,(although I seen some of these types and they are starting to crack). The ones that suffer the most are the ones going all the way east or south, which the worst fucking transit system in the world as this report confirms this claim of mine, as they elongated the waiting times. Even one minute turns a platform something akin to a chicken manufacturing plant.

Let's see if that extra quarter the mta will be filching from commuters will pay dividends. If not, there's going to be a lot of anger and more incidents of senseless violence.

Keep on increasing the density of population by overbuilding a city that has been overbuilt decades ago and you wind up with a totally inadequate transit system. That means if I live in Jackson Heights, a #7 local stop, I might have to let 4full trains go by before I can manage to squeeze into one less crowded on my way to work each morning. Is that grinding me down? You betcha!

Where does the News article mention reducing the carbon footprint? Does it or the study compare subway vs car regarding length of commute or environmental impact? And regardless, what's the connection?

Well i guess the question to ask your councilman is what are they doing to stop this - we cannot grow forever.

It stupid to put people on bikes to lower the carbon footprint then add more buildings so that we are further back in pollution then when we started - only this time with the streets clogged with bikes - further causing more traffic and idling engines - which starts a vicious cycle.

More development, more pollution, more stupid clumsy ideas to get rid of it, which causes more pollution then when we started.

When this development cashes we will get hit so hard our back teeth will rattle.

Would you really wish to live in those places you mentioned? With a slightly shorter commute you get such added bonuses as higher crime, overcrowding, trash-filled streets . Many people would rather take the longer commute and live in areas with more space and less crime.

Institute Bus-HOV lanes on surface streets. One of the chief complaints of Bus lanes from drivers is that it appears empty all the time. Even if there is a bus every 2 minutes, it appears that way. If you commute into congested areas, it would make it worthwhile to take the bus, car pool and van pool.

There are very few places where you can live and get a decent commute without paying an INSANE amount of rent.

To name a few.

Queens - Elmhurst, Corona, Jackson Heights and Flushing.

Bronx - Parkchester....

Brooklyn - Sunset Park, Flatbush, kensington and Ridgewood

I could never understand why people who work in Manhattan would move to Long Island and commute by car.

1.5 hours one way on the, you choose, L.I.E, Southern State etc..

Take a look at the areas that you post....what white regular new yorker wants to live in any of those places? If you are white, you can't go just anywhere anymore in nyc. Every single store caters to foreigners in most of those places you named!! Why would I or should I have to live around a bunch of classless disgusting foreigners and illegals?

LIRR and Express bus all have monthly passes you can buy that are a lot cheaper than paying every day. and a lot of jobs have transit benefits where they take money out pretax and give you a special credit card to buy a metro card or pass

First world problems. We bitch about how hard we have it because we have to commute for an hour or two, while we wear clothes made in sweatshops around the world. We are so fortunate, yet still find things to bitch about.

If the elected officials were required to live in the outer boroughs---in the inconvenient parts where most people live, not LIC and Brooklyn Heights--- things would change quickly.----

Elected officials live in their districts, except for a few suspected scammer exceptions. So Margaret Chin lives in lower Manhattan and Phil Goldfeder lives in Rockaway. You think Chin should live in Rockaway too?

Some people seem to take our duty to watch and criticize the government into truly strange places.

OK Crapper, always glad to see you weigh in directly, but how should we take the comment and what was the poster's point? I fail to see one. I'd be happy to be corrected if there's a metaphor or something I missed but I don't think there is. There's no there there.

The way I read it is that if elected officials were not wealthy and instead had to live the way a lot of the city lives, they wouldn't allow transit to suffer. Every one of them lives in the best part of their district and they all have city council license plates for their cars. How many take the subway to city hall? I'm guessing zero.

Face it, NYC is overcrowded and it just keeps getting more so. The question is why do we keep packing people into such a congested space,if animals were keep this way the animal rite's groups would have a hissy fit. The people who run the City all need to sit thru Urban Planning 101.

R185.....you probably don't even come from nyc. You are probably one of those piece of garbage liberals who "think" they are from here. Just because you live in nyc doesn't make you a New Yorker. If you weren't born here and lived here your whole life then you have no right to complain!!

So Albany ponies up. How is it funded? Through fares or bonds, which are retired from taxes that, like the fares, comes out of our pockets.

Now that they are building 50 and 70 story buildings, is there any assurance that this money will be enough? or will we be back to square one in three years.

The problem that I find so grating is that no one is asking these questions.

And the public is being manipulated to be the front men for putting infrastructure that will not be improved, but only to serve the needs of developers. Its no mistake that the service across the city is jammed, but the vast majority of press that are interviewing ANGRY staphangers depends on the usual gullible chumps from Queens who sing the chorus expected of them.

The sad thing is, if we lose we actually win.

If Albany does not come up with the money, the 50 and 70 story projects would never get built.

made the "weird" comment. Crapper got it exactly right. Remember when Bloomberg claimed used to say that he took the subway like everyone else and real NYers rolled our eyes because we knew that riding the 6 train for a few stops with a security team is nothing like trying to squeeze onto a crowded 7 or E train? That's what I was referring to. I worked for the City government for 10 years and did intake for a couple council people. Just because they have a storefront office in the area doesn't make them familiar with constituent issues. And if they're"living" it the way Bloomberg did, spare me.

regarding the bloomberg comment, under his reign, the trains DID run better, at least until the last few months. I am now walking back stops in Manhattan so I can at least assure myself of getting onto a train home to Queens! Lexington Avenue stops are dangerous and frustrating in the overcrowded platforms and jammed trains that result in 2 hour commutes!

Anonymous said...Born in Brooklyn. Lived there for 46 years until the last 13 in Queens. (Sorry to interrupt your biased assumptions.)

Thursday, March 19, 2015 r185 said...Forgot to note who it was - r185

OH so you're one of those NYC liberals who RUIN NYC with your shitty liberal thoughts and who VOTED for Deblasio huh? NICE VOTE by the way...look at what your wonderful fellow liberal is doing now to RUIN NYC...now its clear!! BTW....GOOD GOING ON THE SHIT that you voted for!!

OK Crapper and "required to live ..." commenter — yes, if you mean were less wealthy and had to take transit, then I get it and pretty much agree.

And whoever posted about liberals, yep, they're ruining the city and of course the whole country and the world. Ruin everything they touch. And yet there are tens of millions who think the crooked old Secretary of State should be President, if only because she's a she. Dummies.

Your local councilman, most likely, is getting too many campaign contributions from the overbuilding developers. Mine, Paul Vallone, is even a lobbyist for these developers. He has tried to convince us he isn't, but he speaks with a forked tongue.

Chrome dome Paul Vallone, has hooked himself up good with the St. Andrews church crowd. Many of these are influential in the local civic association. His pappa, Peter did the same in Astoria. This is a way of winning votes on Election Day. Don Paulo cuts an image of a concerned family man. Behind everyone's back he sells out his own neighborhood. Be careful how you vote in the next election. Dump Vallone!

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